Halfway through the first quarter of Friday's home contest against top-ranked Norfolk Catholic, Arlington capped off a time-consuming opening drive with a goal line touchdown run from quarterback Owen Ladehoff.
Taking a 6-0 lead against the reigning back-to-back state champs, Eagles coach Troy Schlueter saw a level of execution and attention to detail that showed great promise. The efficiency didn't hold up in a game ending in a 52-19 Knights' victory.
“The discipline of that first drive didn't carry through the whole game,” Schlueter said. “When you have a penalty against a good team, it's tough to go 20 yards to get a first down against a good team.”
In making physicality a point of emphasis last week, Schlueter felt his team carried it out on the opening drive. Fine-tuning certain things and carrying out assignments, he saw some plays run to perfection, and the message was simple: if Arlington can run against a team of Norfolk Catholic's caliber, it can run against anybody.
“On that drive, one thing we noticed is that when we don't have penalties or shoot ourselves in the foot, and some of those silly things we started to do later in the game, we're not too bad,” Schlueter said. “We can actually move the ball pretty good.”
With the Knights responding at rapid speed and getting out to a 27-6 lead, a substantial kick return led to good field positioning for the Eagles with a chance to cut the deficit to two scores before halftime.
But timeouts had been used up earlier in response to those mishaps, and the clock ran out on what could have been a promising end to the half for the home side.
“Technique-wise, we weren't doing what we were supposed to be doing,” Schlueter said of the early timeout usage. “That's how they were kind of gashing us, so we wanted to remind them that when we're doing our technique things are going well. I kind of used it like a basketball timeout to give them a short break. We'd been gashed a couple plays in a row, so I was like, 'OK, chill for a second and relax.'”
In hindsight, Schlueter shared how he could have saved one of those timeouts. But, in the moment, he felt it was the right decision.
The Knights rattled off the first three scores of the second half before the Eagles responded, ultimately tacking on two more Jack Morgan touchdowns before the final whistle.
However, Schlueter was encouraged by the resilience he saw from his team. Rushing for 235 yards against a program with a state record 12 state titles, and battling to put more points on the board until the contest's conclusion, the Arlington coach hopes to use the showing as a major building block moving forward.
“The thing we took away from it is that we were willing to put up a fight against that caliber of a team,” Schlueter said. “Can we take that fight into practice in the upcoming week and then to the next game? We were looking to see if we had some heart and wanted to get after somebody regardless of what it said on their jersey. We were pleased that we came out and were ready to fight.”
NO. 1 NORFOLK CATHOLIC 52, ARLINGTON 19
NCHS (4-0) 7 20 13 12 — 52
AHS (1-3) 6 0 0 13 — 19
Scoring Summary
First Quarter
A: Owen Ladehoff 1-yard run, PAT failed
NC: Trevin Sukup 4-yard run, Max Hammond PAT
Second Quarter
NC: Sukup 3-yard run, Hammond PAT
NC: Nathan Timmerman 3-yard run, Hammond PAT
NC: Sukup 23-yard reception from Callen Marshall, PAT blocked by Trent Koger
Third Quarter
NC: Hammond 19-yard run, Hammond PAT
NC: Sukup 11-yard reception from Hammond, PAT blocked by Koger
Fourth Quarter
NC: No. 1 16-yard run, PAT failed
A: Jack Morgan 1-yard run, Dallin Franzlubbers PAT
NC: No. 1 80-yard kickoff return, PAT failed
A: Morgan 63-yard run, two-point conversion failed
